Stumbling through the portal, I fell to my knees on the other side as it disappeared. Trying to find my bearings, I found myself in the middle of the road in a bustling rustic village. Quickly standing up, I noticed that the building directly in front of me had a large sign hanging over it's front door. "Adventurer's Guild".
"Are you kidding me? How much does Shade love video games that he created an Adventurer's Guild?!?!"
*Ding*
*You have entered a special zone!*
*Description: Ironmarsh is one of many special zones created to allow low level cultivators to gain experience. Guide available to introduce you to special zones.*
'What the hell' I thought, as I opened a menu to turn on the guide and a fairy complete with glittering wings and a tiara appeared in front of me.
"Welcome to Ironmarsh, my name is Twinkle and I'll be your guide today! Most people will initially fail to join a sect, clan, or hidden power when they first enter MSE. In order to give these people a chance to grow in strength and enjoy their experience in MSE, special zones like Ironmarsh have been created. The Adventurer's guild releases quests to quell constant invasions by Goblins, Kobolds, and low-level non-sentient beasts. Providing an excellent way for new cultivators to gain experience and make money. Meanwhile, the various professions have created guilds that provide opportunities for anyone interested in a profession to learn it, and if skilled enough join a Sect or even the College Arcane in the future!"
The fairy unleashed a ton of information at an incredibly rapid speed. I'm fairly sure that if I hadn't already begun refining my mind I'd have missed at least half of it. I turned the guide function off, and the fairy disappeared in a puff of glitter, but not without getting a parting shot in.
"I'll be back!" She tried to give as good an impersonation of the Terminator as she could while glaring at me.
Smiling at her antics, I pushed open the door to the Adventurer's Guild. I figured that if anyone had information on Elemental Spirits it would be found here. I was assaulted by a wall of noise the moment the door opened. The room was packed, standing room only as hundreds of people were partying. A large bar stood in the corner, and as I walked by I noticed that none of these people had broken through to body refining yet. So much has changed with my life in the last couple of weeks that I tend to forget that for most people they'd gotten an implant for a week at most, and hadn't even figured out how to cultivate yet.
Pushing my way through the crowds of people, I made it to the front of a desk that had a sign saying "Registration" over it. There, a middle-aged woman sat buffing her nails and completely ignoring me. Clearing my throat, I tried to get her attention but she just pointed to a paper at the front of the desk and kept buffing her nails. Looking down, I read it, 'Minimum Requirements: Mastered beginner level fighting style, cultivation of level 1 body refinement.'
I nodded, understanding that after a week of answering the same question over and over again she'd gotten fed up. "I qualify." I said, making sure that she heard me.
Snorting she said, "And I'm the Pope, go away."
"No, I qualify. I'm sure there's some kind of test I'm supposed to go through, just point me in the right direction."
"Just go away, you don't qualify." She said, this time standing up and leaving all pretense of working behind as she went to go get a beer.
Maybe I'd begun to get arrogant after becoming a cultivator, but the only person who'd disrespected me that badly was Craig, and that still stung my ego a bit even after I'd beat him down in an instant. I mean, who is she to be such a bitch?
Walking over to the stairs, I opened a door with a sign that said "Members Only" on it. A guy who stood next to the stairs in an official uniform said, "Only members are allowed up there."
I smiled at him and said, "The only reason I'm not a member is your registration lady refuses to do her job, so I'm going to go make some trouble and get her fired. Good day."
He tried to get in my way, but I had deployed a barrier around me and he just fell to the floor, unable to move as electricity arched through him. 'Shouldn't of touched me when I'm this pissed off.' I thought to myself as I walked up the stairs. The entire bar downstairs went quiet, and as the door closed behind me I heard someone shout out, "50 says he lasts 20 seconds!" Apparently, I wasn't the first to try and rush the upstairs area. Too bad I didn't have any money on me, I could probably make some serious cash.
Reaching the top, I saw a young lady dressed much nicer than the woman downstairs glaring at me from behind a receptions desk. The walls of the room were covered in requests, and only two other people were up there. Apparently, the population left over after the various sects and powerhouses had their pick was training pretty slowly.
Thinking about that I frowned, 'It's a few years from the beginning of the wave of corruption, but incidents are already on the rise. If that room's a true representation of the world's strength then Millions if not Billions will die.' While I was ruminating over the implications of such a lackadaisical attitude towards cultivation, the lady behind the reception desk spoke. "You're not allowed up here, you have 5 seconds to leave before I force you too."
I walked up to her with the friendliest smile I could manage to force, I was pretty pissed off at the moment, "I came up here because the lady downstairs refused to look at me even after I told her I was qualified. Frankly, if this is the level of service that the Adventurer's Guild aspires too then there's a serious problem."
At that, the lady took a close look at me. Unlike everyone else downstairs, I was wearing a blue silk robe and walking in leather boots instead of those god awful sandals. I can't tell you how happy I was to burn those, I might have even danced around the bonfire while singing Kumbaya...
"Fine then, since you claim to belong here then you can take my punch." Then, she attacked me with more force than anyone had ever attacked me with before. If I had to guess, she's probably at the 5th level of body refinement. If it'd been a couple days ago, I would've been blown away by her, but I just stood there as if nothing happened. My Storm Shield brightened, and a loud roar echoed through the room.
"What the hell?" A male voice yelled out from an office, slamming a door open he glared at me. The receptionist had been knocked back by the recoil, slamming into the wall and leaving behind an imprint. "Who are you, and what are you doing attacking my people!" He yelled at me, an aura approaching the peak of body refining coming off of him as he stalked towards me.
I smiled as politely as I could and said, "She attacked me, and I'm here to complain about your lack of service." My smile got colder as I spoke, and apparently Patrice was affected as well as I went passed being pissed off and a rage ignited in me. It wasn't as powerful as the rage I'd felt when fighting the abomination, but my eyes flashed with a dark-gold light and the air around me started billow as a nasty gust front filled the room.
My aura apparently surprised him, and he turned to look at the receptionist. "Did you attack him Monica?"
"Yes, he claimed that he wasn't allowed to register because of that woman downstairs and I decided to test if he was telling the truth or just lying like the rest of them." The woman actually managed to sound prim and proper as she stood up and jutted her chin proudly into the air. Honestly, I was kind of impressed by her.
Sighing, the man pinched the bridge of his nose. "Would you like to come into my office so we can talk about this?"
Nodding, I sent a mental thank you to Patrice. Closing the door to his office behind us, the man spoke as he waved for me to sit in a chair at the front of a desk. Instead of sitting behind it he grabbed the other chair in front of it and turned it to face me. "My name is Alex, and I'm the Manager of the Ironmarsh branch of the Adventurer's Guild. Could you please explain to me exactly what happened?"
Sighing, I took a moment to let go of as much of my rage as I could. After a moment, I told him the whole story about the woman downstairs.
"That bitch!" He said, anger sparking in his eyes. "This isn't the first incident with her, but there's nothing we can do about it. Her son joined the Pure-Sword Sect and he's been here throwing around the weight of the sect. I can't afford to offend one of the great sects so early on."
I just smiled at him coldly, my rage returning to the surface. "Give me a moment." I said, using my implant to call Carlos.
"Hey Carlos, can you come over to Ironmarsh?" I asked after it got connected. He's my bodyguard, he should be around when I stir shit up.
"Maybe, the major sects and powers agreed to only send their juniors to those areas. Why, what's wrong?"
"Nothing much," I went on to explain it.
"Do whatever you want too. If you cause any trouble we'll back you, it'll be a learning experience for you."
"Honestly, I'm more worried about the state of the Adventurer's Guild then I am her. The people here are just partying all day instead of training. Only three or four people have managed to break through the Body Refining despite having over a week to train. I know it takes longer for some people, but there's got to be thousands of people here, and the Sects can't possibly take in all the good seeds. There's just too many of them."
"I'll get back to you on that, Mistress Ariel just contacted me to tell you to forget about that crap and go hunting for Spirits. Congratulations by the way, I'm really impressed."
I smiled at that, for all the time I've known Carlos, that's the first time he's ever complimented me. Or anyone else for that matter, the man just doesn't do praise despite his easy-going personality.
Hanging up, I forgot that Alex was in the room when I called Carlos, so I was surprised when he asked emphatically, "Who are you?"